Page 64 of Do Not Disturb
“Please don’t do this.” Nick reaches for my hand, and I don’t shake him away. “Rosie, I love you. I’m so sorry.Please. Give me another chance.”
I look into his brown eyes. All I see is love. He doesn’t seem like he’s sticking around because he feels sorry for me or out of obligation. He wants to be with me. Even after everything I’ve put him through, he still wants to be with me.
But I keep seeing his arms around that other woman. The way he kissed her… he certainly wasn’t thinking of me then.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t forgive you.”
“Please, Rosie.” He squeezes my hand. “You have to give me one more chance. Please let me make this right. I can make this right. I swear.”
“Nick…”
“I love you.” A single tear gathers in the corner of his right eye, but he swipes at it before it falls. “I promise you, I’m going to fix this.”
“Get out.”
He takes a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll go. Fornow.”
Whatever. I’ll be dead soon anyway.
He glances at our bed, where we’ve been sleeping side-by-side for the last year without even touching each other. “Do you need help getting into…?”
“No. I’ll manage.”
He looks doubtful, but he stands up—something I can’t do anymore without support. He takes one last look at me, then he leaves the room, shutting the door gently behind him.
I wonder if this is what that psychic foretold at the carnival all those years ago. He’s effectively killed me, even if he doesn’t know it.
I consider enacting my plan right then and there. I’m so sick of everything—it will be nice to just be done. Then again, Nick might come back and save me. And if he discovers what I was trying to do, he’ll have me put in a psych ward. As if someone in my situation would have to be mentally ill to want to kill themselves.
Ultimately, I’m just too tired to go through with it. I’m literallytoo tiredto kill myself.
Instead, I attempt to transfer myself to the bed. I’ve done it a handful of times, but usually with Nick nearby. Dr. Heller tried to convince me this is something I should be able to do independently, but I couldn’t motivate myself to go to physical therapy and learn. Now I’m paying the price. I put one arm on the bed, supporting my body. I hold on to the armrest of my wheelchair, preparing to scoot over.
It should be no surprise that I fall. But somehow, it still is.
I spill out onto the floor in front of my chair. The impact sends a sharp pain through my right hip, and my wheelchair overturns. And moreover, the wind is knocked out of me. For a moment, I just sit there, stunned.
And then I have to figure out what to do. I’m lying on the floor of my bedroom, incapable of getting back into my chair or onto the bed. I don’t have any idea what to do next. Crawl over to my phone? Call 911?
I wish I hadn’t been so lazy and just taken those pills like I planned.
I drop my head down against the floor and sob. I hate what my life has become. I used to have everything. A loving, faithful,sexyhusband. The job of my dreams. A baby on the way. And then in three short years, I lost it all.
I wish the floor would just swallow me up.
I’ve been sobbing for several seconds when I hear the soft knock on the door. At first, I think I must be hearing things. Then the voice: “Rosie?”
It’s Nick.
I want to tell him to go away, but even more, I want to get off the floor. “Yes. Come in.”
He opens the door and catches me lying there with my red eyes and wet face. “Rosie,” he murmurs.
The tears stream down my face. “Nick…”
He bends down beside me, and very, very gently, he lifts me off the floor. He lowers me down on the bed, then he crawls into the bed beside me. He brushes a wet strand of hair from my face as he looks into my eyes. And then, very slowly and gently, he dips his lips onto mine.
We make love for the first time in almost a year. I fall asleep curled up in Nick’s arms.
